by Bryher;
Selina began to bundle up her blankets into an old rug-strap. Her bed was stripped under a much-washed counterpane, and this gave the room an air of transience; it made it, she decided, rather like a warehouse. She had never had enough money to furnish it properly, with “nice pieces” such as the bureau that Mrs. Spenser had once shown her, with smooth drawers and a cedar scent. People did not realize the high cost of neatness. Her almost obligatory uniform, the blouse and tweed coat and skirt, were far more expensive than the vague, elaborate clothes of many of her customers. The skirts would get shiny no matter how careful she was; she brushed them, wore the two suits alternate days, and had never been known to stain them, not even in the damson season, but they wore out with constant use; and so the curtains, which had really been faded before the war began, were never replaced and her cupboard could neither be shut nor opened in a hurry.
If she could have one really long night’s sleep in her own bed, she would not feel so depressed, Selina thought. It was doubtful if Mr. Dobbie’s basement, smelling of coffee and sacking, was really safer than the house; only she could not leave poor old Mr. Rashleigh alone in his attic, and there was no knowing how Cook and Mary would behave, left to their own devices. There were moments when she wished that they slept out, like Ruby. She pulled the strap tighter round her bed roll, and the worn leather came away in her hand.
Selina stood looking at her luggage, at the blankets and pillow sprawling over the carpet and the small, heavy suitcase with the documents and her other coat and skirt. She could not endure any more, she thought, there must be a limit to endurance, though there didn’t seem to be. Her arms would not work, and she could not think. Cook went downstairs heavily; it was a signal that she was late. If she did not hurry, Angelina, who was, alas, so restless, would get that creaking deck chair. She ought to find a piece of cord (her mind outlined the actions, as if by listing them they were accomplished) and knot the two bits of strap together, but she was too tired; she sat down in her chair again and remembered, for no particular reason, a day when Miss ‘Humphries had been particularly trying and one of the big black trunks had got mislaid at the station. She could see the palm tree now with the branch split in two behind the little wicker tea table and hear Miss Humphries storming at her, so loud that all the people in the lounge had stopped to listen: “Surely you know, Miss Tippett, that two and two make four? I thought you had counted the luggage at the station.”
It had been on the tip of Selina’s tongue to resign her position right away. She had heard a lady giggling, and everyone had stared at her. Why, it had been the moment, and it came back as if it were happening all over again, when she had first met Angelina. A figure had strode over from the desk, with such untidy hair, poor, dear Angelina, it was so characteristic of her, how much better she looked now that she had had it cropped, and had said, “Trunks, did I hear that you have lost a trunk? Those incompetent fools at the station did the same thing with my suitcase the other day, but the stationmaster ought to have been in the diplomatic service. I can’t tell you how kind he was. Do let me ring him up for you—he found my things at once.” Miss Humphries, who had an aversion to strangers that was almost eccentricity, had been so charmed that it had turned out afterwards to be the best holiday they had had for years.
I must be tolerant, Selina muttered, leaning over to roll up the covers again; if that wretched bulldog means so much to her, I must try not to let her see that I think it’s vulgar. I wonder how much she really gave for it?
Still, they had got the processed eggs, Miss Tippett reflected, as she tried to thread a piece of too short string through the buckle of the broken strap.
There was an ominous silence in the street. How easy it would be to sleep, at once, in her chair. Somehow Selina shook herself awake and pulled on her woollen gloves. With all her belongings under her arms, she looked like a porter. I ought to have an armlet, she thought, catching sight of herself in the mirror. How grotesque in the twentieth century, she almost said aloud, shuffling up the staircase to tap at Horatio’s door. “We are all going down to the shelter tonight, Mr. Rashleigh; I’ll come back for you as soon as I’ve taken along the blankets.”
Some obscure sound came from her boarder’s room. The usual ritual of objection, she supposed, only half listening to it. “Now, Mr. Rashleigh, you must remember it is not ourselves we have to consider. I need you to help me with the girls. They turn that basement topsy-turvy without our supervision.”
Dear, dear, how trying the old could be! Selina started downstairs, trying to keep her bundle from flicking each step and catching all the dust. The handle of her case cut into her fingers, but she could not make three separate journeys. How much longer could this go on, she wondered? Her neck was permanently stiff, and if she got much more rheumatic she would not be able to write up the ledger. Perhaps she was a fool to bother about Horatio and Cook. If the poor old gentleman wanted to die in his bed, it was really more sensible to leave him in peace; only then she would feel guilty all night, knowing that he was alone in that insecure attic. Nor was it really her affair if Cook had hysterics and screamed. Why did she go on dragging herself to the shelter, why didn’t she stay on in her own room and sleep? Sleep, she thought, it was a silver word, a smoky silver. At the thought of it her eyes half closed; and then, of course, the makeshift handle of her roll slipped and a pillow began to bulge. She stopped under the faint blue light on the landing to repack and rest.
Nobody had noticed in peacetime how steep the staircase was. It must be a very old house. The shadowy walls stretched above her head like cliffs, and then, as she turned the corner for the final flight, she seemed to be staggering into a mine. One of these nights somebody would trip over a rug and fall to the bottom. She stopped suddenly at the thought of it, feeling her knees catch against an invisible rope.
Mary was still fumbling at the front door. “Must have been the raid, yesterday, madam, it seems to stick.” She was in the new siren suit that had caused so much excitement in the kitchen, but the hood was too big and it had fallen back on her shoulders. She tugged the handle angrily and the door opened with a jerk. Selina dropped her bundle to switch off the light hastily, hoping no wardens were outside. “Timothy said this morning it must have shaken the frame.”
“Oh, it will take years to put things in order again,” Selina said, staring up into the dark sky. What wicked people those Germans were, always making wars. The headlines seemed continuous: the Somme, that nephew of Miss Humphries getting killed, victory, and now, in spite of all those Armistice Days (Miss Humphries had never missed being wheeled into the park for the Silence), it was happening a second time in an even more unpleasant way. I wonder what it is really all about, she thought; only it was a good thing not to have said this to Angelina! “Dear, dear,” she managed to switch her torch on in spite of her thick gloves, “we live in difficult times.”
“Cook says we should be ever so much safer in the Tube.”
“I’m sure we couldn’t be cosier or more secure than we are. It is very kind of Mr. Dobbie to let us come to his basement. And it is much healthier than being underground with thousands of people.”
Mary was unconvinced. She pulled her hood forward wistfully, looking like a gnome in a pantomime chorus. “Cook says they have games in the station and her sister met ever such a nice gentleman, he had a radio no bigger than a sandwich box. It was ever so gay.” She slammed the front door shut and picked up the tea basket.
There was just enough light to see the railings round the area of the neighbouring house. Selina felt her torch slip gradually from the hand that was trying to hold both it and the strap. If her blankets came unrolled in the filth of the street she would never feel like using them again. She had to walk so unnaturally too, taking tiny, stiff steps like a penguin, partly because it was so difficult to see and partly because of the weight dragging at both shoulders. I know I shall get sciatica next, she thought, for the cold pierced her coat as if it were not wool but po
rous blotting paper.
It was strange how seldom she had been out at night. There had been a ban on darkness in her youth, and Miss Humphries, of course, had never stirred out after sunset. How frantically they had searched through timetables so as to be sure to arrive at Bournemouth in daylight! “My dear Miss Tippett, fancy suggesting the two forty-five when you know how prone I am to bronchitis!” The siren and that querulous voice had something in common. At the Warming Pan, life had been too full to encourage nocturnal excursions. Occasionally Angelina had dragged her to a theatre, but plays were either unpleasant or exaggeratedly romantic. And as for the cinema, she positively disliked it. It was associated in her mind with the more tiresome of Mary’s moods, or with Cook’s unending descriptive frenzies after her evening out. Yet this darkness, cold and difficult as it was, was strangely beautiful. The ugly block at the bottom of the road became a fortress—and had she seen archers scrambling up the turrets in the front beam that was not a swinging lantern but a small, electric torch, she would not even have been surprised.
“Don’t wait for me, Mary,” Selina said, “the sooner you get out of the cold the better.” Another figure bumped into her, hurrying up the street, but it was as quiet and shadowy otherwise as if she were walking up a country lane. There was no light showing from any window. The houses stood in flutes of dark stone with no visible entrance. She tried to hurry, for she had a feeling that Mr. Rashleigh was going to be troublesome, but she had to set her suitcase down twice before she reached the door that Mary was holding open.
It was a relief to get into Mr. Dobbie’s hall and to struggle down the twisting staircase to his basement. One end was blocked up with wooden boxes, but a dozen people had already arrived and were making up their beds as usual the length of the two walls. “So this is the twentieth century,” Selina snorted, by way of greeting. Her rubber mattress with its red and green stripes looked incongruous on the concrete floor. Angelina considered herself an unofficial warden, and was already checking names and deck chairs by a pencilled list. “No, Cook, I shouldn’t leave the thermos there, it will be in everybody’s way; stand it in the corner, our ‘refreshment room,’ and are you sure, tonight, you have remembered to bring the biscuits?” She moved a chair rest, picked up a pillow, and came over to Selina, as if there had not been a shadow of disagreement between them. “Welcome to our Lido!” she shouted gaily, waving to someone on the stairs, and the room really was like a bathing pool that had got mixed up with a side show at a fair. There were grey rugs like horse blankets, pale pink quilts and striped sun-bathing pads. “I’ve hidden the barley sugar, dear,” she whispered, “so be sure not to ask for it. You know what people are like, and I will not listen to them sucking it all the evening. It might be the saving of our lives if anything happened.”
“We shouldn’t be able to enjoy it, should we, if we were covered up with rubble?” Candy was a weakness of Selina’s, and just the mention of it made her feel how good a stick would taste at that very moment. It was such a pity that her partner was narrow minded over what she called “nibbling between meals.” Then she remembered the fruit drops in her bag; she would eat one going back. “I’ll leave my things here and go and fetch Mr. Rashleigh; I won’t be five minutes, and then I’ll help you with the chairs.”
“That tiresome old man!”
“I know, dear, but I can’t sleep when he stays there, all alone.”
“Oh, well, hurry then. The chalk is working beautifully; I’m marking numbers all along the floor.”
Angelina had evolved a theory that a line should be drawn between each bed; but as there were too few for the room to be crowded, it seemed unnecessary. She was very happy, however, with her stick of chalk. It gave her the feeling that she was organizing the neighbours into a big, happy community, and she planned, but dared not suggest, a wall newspaper.
“I’m afraid, Mary, you neglected to sweep up this morning,” Selina heard her partner saying, as she started up the stairs again; “greasy paper is not only unsightly but it attracts the flies. All of us,” and Angelina flicked the checked duster reprovingly, “are helping to keep the shelter tidy, but Cleanliness is Essential.” She folded a shawl and straightened a pillow whilst Mary looked on vaguely with her mind on her own affairs.
Outside, the road was ominously calm. Mr. Dobbie must be at the warden’s post; he was a very comforting figure in his tin hat and blue uniform. Walking was easier without bundles, though Selina stumbled over one curbstone; but Mary was right, the door did stick, and she had to use all her force to open it. It would be unpleasant to be trapped inside, and she ventured to leave it ajar. As she entered, the long, familiar moan began that was taken up, second after second, by a dozen other sirens across London.
The Warming Pan, empty as it was, seemed full of rustlings and shadows. How strange, Selina thought, climbing the endless stairs; in a few seconds they might be blown to bits. Still, they said you felt nothing with a direct hit, and though she murmured the words, the meaning slipped away from her. A step creaked and she stopped, listening for footsteps. It was tiresome of Timothy, he always had a new story about looters. As she passed her own bedroom door she had an impulse to dash in and collect the trifles from the shelves; they seemed to reproach her for leaving them. What an irrational fancy to have, she reflected, but it showed how easy it was to become terrified by one’s own imagination, whenever violence upset normal existence.
Horatio was sitting in his chair, staring at the wall. “Hurry up, Mr. Rashleigh, all the girls are waiting for you at Dobbie’s and I can’t manage them without your help. Why, you never put on your gas fire!” Selina looked round for his overcoat. “You must be frozen!”
“Beggars can’t be choosers, Miss Tippett!” Horatio made no attempt to lift the coat from his knees.
“As long as you paint your delightful landscapes”—she must humour the old man—“how can you speak of want?” There was a new sketch of a girl on the mantelpiece; she resembled Eve a little, sitting on a bank with a ribboned hat in her lap. “Is that another picture? We must take it down with us and show it to Mrs. Spenser.” She tried to force his stiff arms into the sleeves.
“Oh, just a petite water colour nobody wants these days. I call it June.” Flattered in spite of himself, Horatio let her draw his gloves on; it was the first time that he had seemed really helpless. His hands were blue and cold, and he made no attempt even to button up his collar. “If this goes on,” Selina chattered, folding up his rug, “we shall have to take to sleeping bags. I wonder if you could manage to carry your pillow?” He seemed not to hear her, and she had to lead him to the door, though he stopped and picked up his little painting as they passed it.
Once Horatio’s light was out, the corridor seemed endless. It was impossible to hurry him, though Selina thought grimly of the scramble they would have outside without a torch. They bumped down, a stair at a time, but though the rug was lighter than the suitcase, Rashleigh let his full weight drag on her arm, and she was afraid that they might both topple forward to the bottom. He did not speak, and she had a sense of the walls being alive, of shadows watching her, laughing at her, as if the thoughts of people whom she had never known, the original dwellers in the house, had been released from cracks and keyholes. It was unnatural, there were no other words to describe it, and she had never had so lost a feeling before except once when she had missed her way in a fog.
“It’s not far,” she said reassuringly as they stepped into the street. Was it imagination or had it really grown clearer? “Did I switch out the light?” she asked, and to make sure she flashed her torch inside the letter box. Even if she had left her money or keys upstairs she could never go again through that dark hall. She rattled the handle to make sure everything was locked. “Now, Mr. Rashleigh, slowly and steadily; are you on the pavement all right? Let’s count our steps and we’ll be at Dobbie’s”—she had been going to say—“in a moment,” but the guns started, like a pack of wolves, and the road itself vibrated
under their feet.
“You know, I think this blackout is worse than the raid!” Selina felt for the railing and began to creep forward. They must look like two blind pilgrims in one of the grimmer mysteries.
The noise was tremendous. It was not like thunder, it was angrier. Planes seemed to be directly overhead as if the whir of a mosquito had been magnified many times. “Take my arm, Mr. Rashleigh, we must hurry!”
Swift movement, however, was impossible. Horatio merely upset her balance, and she wondered if she ought to jettison the rugs. There seemed to be nobody in the street at all when the flashes lit up the darkness. They lurched along as if they were on a rolling ship, and the cold wind started Mr. Rashleigh coughing.
Half the sky seemed to explode over their heads and crash. “It’s all right”—she tried to be as gay as possible—“they say if you hear them it isn’t so dangerous.”
“Thank you, Miss Tippett, but I am going back.” Horatio jerked his arm away and turned. Something whistled down a few yards along the road.
“You can’t, Mr. Rashleigh, you can’t!” Why, the obstinate old fool, he would never find the door; he couldn’t get up those stairs alone, and duty or no duty she could not enter that house again tonight; no, not if it meant a lifetime of regret. “We are almost there, and then we can have a nice cup of tea.”
“I prefer to hug my own hot-water bottle; we can only die once!” He started walking with amazing rapidity back towards the Warming Pan.
“You can’t!” Selina shrieked, grabbing his shoulder quite roughly. “The door has stuck, and we’ve got to get into the shelter. That was shrapnel.”
“It’s the noise, the terrible noise….” Horatio put up his hand protestingly and at that moment Selina tripped over the fringe of the rug. She fell into the arms of a figure who stepped out of a doorway, saying, “Can I help?”